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So sure, the demand in and of itself is growing, but it's in contrast to the huge supply that it seems almost fixed. Regards "the tech scene's" narrow focus, w

So sure, the demand in and of itself is growing, but it's in contrast to the huge supply that it seems almost fixed. Regards "the tech scene's" narrow focus, what kind of software does the rest of the world need? I mean what problems can software really solve? And to get a better understanding of how we as developers can do anything about it, what is it exactly about software that allows it to do that?

mechanical_fish 12y ago
Don't be fooled by the huge apparent "supply". That's like counting up all the five-paragraph essays and unsold screenplays in the world and concluding that we have an oversupply of great writing. What we have is a huge slush pile, 98% of which will prove worthless in the end except as a practice exercise for its creators. (Which is valuable, of course, just not valuable to the customers.) Because the bottleneck is the market. That's where the culling happens. Like the majority of screenplays, most products are dead on arrival because they can't be effectively marketed. That is in part because the marketplace is crowded, but again: Don't mistake the stacks and stacks of App Store offerings for a saturated market. It's just a market choked with weeds. One of the things the world needs is better software markets. The fact that you can't hear people screaming about their terrible software, or see and count the money that they would potentially pay for better software, is a sign of the market's ineffectiveness.
- rmc 12y ago
  > What we have is a huge slush pile, 98% of which will prove worthless in the end Don't forget Sturgeon's Law[1], "90% of anything is crap": > The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard to other art forms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law
josephschmoe 12y ago
If you wish to know what 50-something suburban southwestern housewives care about, go out and spend time with 50-something suburban southwestern housewives. When you have a community that is predominately creators, expect all well-known unsolved problems to require some great leap to be solved, because easier ones would be solved already. When you have a community that predominately isn't creators, those regular, common-day problems do go unsolved. So go talk to those housewives already!
wikwocket 12y ago
> what problems can software really solve? If you are asking this, perhaps you have not spent a lot of time in industry, especially non-technical industries. There are approximately a gazillion problems that software can solve in a business setting. Absolutely stupid amounts of goods, services, and money are processed via clunky systems that are begging for software-based improvements. If you could follow around an arbitrary office worker, factory worker, healthcare professional, paralegal, real estate broker, or retail employee for a week, your head would be positively bursting with ideas for how software could make their businesses more efficient, and improve their employee quality of life.

mechanical_fish 12y ago

Don't be fooled by the huge apparent "supply". That's like counting up all the five-paragraph essays and unsold screenplays in the world and concluding that we have an oversupply of great writing. What we have is a huge slush pile, 98% of which will prove worthless in the end except as a practice exercise for its creators. (Which is valuable, of course, just not valuable to the customers.) Because the bottleneck is the market. That's where the culling happens. Like the majority of screenplays, most products are dead on arrival because they can't be effectively marketed. That is in part because the marketplace is crowded, but again: Don't mistake the stacks and stacks of App Store offerings for a saturated market. It's just a market choked with weeds. One of the things the world needs is better software markets. The fact that you can't hear people screaming about their terrible software, or see and count the money that they would potentially pay for better software, is a sign of the market's ineffectiveness.

rmc 12y ago
> What we have is a huge slush pile, 98% of which will prove worthless in the end Don't forget Sturgeon's Law[1], "90% of anything is crap": > The phrase was derived from Sturgeon's observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, it could be noted that the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard to other art forms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law

josephschmoe 12y ago

If you wish to know what 50-something suburban southwestern housewives care about, go out and spend time with 50-something suburban southwestern housewives. When you have a community that is predominately creators, expect all well-known unsolved problems to require some great leap to be solved, because easier ones would be solved already. When you have a community that predominately isn't creators, those regular, common-day problems do go unsolved. So go talk to those housewives already!

wikwocket 12y ago

> what problems can software really solve? If you are asking this, perhaps you have not spent a lot of time in industry, especially non-technical industries. There are approximately a gazillion problems that software can solve in a business setting. Absolutely stupid amounts of goods, services, and money are processed via clunky systems that are begging for software-based improvements. If you could follow around an arbitrary office worker, factory worker, healthcare professional, paralegal, real estate broker, or retail employee for a week, your head would be positively bursting with ideas for how software could make their businesses more efficient, and improve their employee quality of life.